BLACK'N'BLUES

BLACK‘N’BLUES is inspired by the 19e century minstrel show and blackface traditions in the United States – the farce of Whites made up as Blacks imitating Blacks aping Whites.

BLACK‘N’BLUES is inspired by the 19e century minstrel show and blackface traditions in the United States – the farce of Whites made up as Blacks imitating Blacks aping Whites.

The minstrel show may be perceived of as an infinite inversion and reversal of the signs of identity and power. The staging of opposing and contradictory characters – white-black, man-woman, master-slave – questions with lightness and panache the notions of race, class and gender. It prefigures many forms of 20th century American entertainment : vaudeville, burlesque, slapstick, stand up comedy, even rap.

Our work is drawn from the collective memory of popular imagery – to a great extent buried and more often than not burlesque – and the intimate lives of the performers. If some of these elements can shock, it is not a question to attenuate these aspects, but to expose them to the public in the theater, a space of exhibition, to create a dialogue and a reflexion.

BLACK‘N’BLUES plays with the specific elements and mechanisms of the minstrel show: blackface, masks, cross-dressing, song-and-dance, parades, dance and oral battles. With the same light and playful spirit we cover current events, and stage the present. In a scenery of painted backdrops and wooden palissades evoking 19e century popular theater, the performers dance, sing and play a contemporary minstrel show that, through parody, liberates the critical forces that laughter provokes.

Source: Mark Tompkins

More information: www.idamarktompkins.com